Racing games play to the earliest and simplest purpose of video games: winning. You can see this most basic goal even under complex customization systems, rewind features, and online competition. They all fail to shroud the games' foremost principle.
Oddly, the genre seems to be losing popularity to some degree. Sure, games like Split Second and ModNation Racers represent more recent successes, but a lot of newer racers seem to stall when the flag drops. Despite games on the horizon that are likely to please loyal fans, it's always tough guessing how the new titles will incorporate modern features.
The racer has built up a lot of notoriety and goodwill during its extensive run in the video-game industry, but in many ways, it continues to be its most unstable genre. Around the turn of the millennium, developers began to branch off into varied styles and takes, ranging from realistic sims for car enthusiasts to casual kart-action fun for the family. With all of these different forms to choose from, the expansive number of mechanics a creator can include in the formula often lead to a jumbled product.
Taking into account all of these factors, it's difficult to decipher which mechanics will successfully merge with a certain style of any given game and how such decisions will resonate with a long-standing fan base. For instance, placing the energetic nature of the Burnout series into an open-world format didn't sit well with the purists of the audience. They found Criterion's take on the series somewhat foreign and alienating.
The versatile nature of the core driving mechanic allows for so many possibilities — and this is where a large portion of the confusion comes in. Along with handling the more modern trappings of big-budget titles — such as managing downloadable updates and online communities — developers are also under great pressure to balance the single-player experience. The style and feel of the solo mode must translate over to the multiplayer aspects of the game. It's a great risk to implement various single-player-game features into multiplayer. Humans race very differently from computer-controlled cars, so it's hard to get everything working properly.
Conflicts also arise simply with the style of the racer. If it's a game like Mario Kart, developers need to keep in mind how boosts, weapons, and customization options might severely break the game — even the slightest imbalance can send a great try downhill. If it's a sim, that's even worse. Scripting real cars to respond to the effects that certain frames or tires have on handling is a complex process.
With old franchises like Need for Speed and Gran Turismo coming back into the fold, a lot more rides on these titles than in recent years. Because of the features galore generally present in racing games, developers need to be careful to pick and choose which ones best suit the direction they want to take the franchise.
Racers had an extremely early origin in arcades, and they comprise one of gaming's oldest genres. Developers had it easy when they ported them to home consoles back in the day, and before long, the genre stood in very high regard. Slowly, however, everything has changed, and my worry is that people may start to think that we've reached and passed the pinnacle of racing.